Rating: ★★★★☆

It’s Full Moon – and we know that’s the time when all the freaks come out … So how can we expect Full Moon in Bon Temps to be anything other than the night when it all kicks off.

Firstly, you’ll recall that the crumbling remains of Pam grassed Eric up, just as he was snuggling up to Snookie. I’ve lost track of just how many days and nights he’s been doing his puppy routine now, enough, it seems, for Sook to have gone from ‘get out of my house’ to ‘get into my knickers’.  And stylish skimpies they are too! She and Eric are about to enjoin in a little coitus when Bill inevitably arrives to interruptus. Not a scenario that is likely to improve his gradually worsening demeanour.

She does live dangerously, that Sookie. I can’t see how this is all going to end well for her, since she can’t resist falling in love with dangerous and unreliable people. Still, love triangles make for good melodrama.

I love Pam’s description of Bill at this point – which is worth waiting for, so I won’t steal her thunder.

It’s also worth noting that, however earnest and heavy the drama gets, there is still a vein of humour running through the series, thankfully. So, here we have Bill using Skype. Not sure why that amused me so much, but it did.  But why is he using it? To ask his puppet-master, Nan, for permission to sentence Eric to The True Death!

That’s something of a Rubicon for Bill to pass … A sign he is transforming into a ruthless and petulant vampire just like Old Eric was. Interesting role reversal there!

Terry and Arlene’s house-fire – that started spontaneously last week after their ‘successful’ exorcism – ends up burning them out of house and home (a precursor of something to come in a episode ten – Burning Down The House – maybe?) and giving them yet another reason to be freaked-out by cute little moppet Mikey and his haunted “ugly old doll” that neither of them seem remotely suspicious about. Similarly, no one notices the mysterious black women that Mikey sees.  His Faerie God-mother, maybe?

And that’s a thought – what happened to the whole Faerie story? I mean, there are more than enough plot lines tangled up in this series, but what happened to that one? Time will, I’m sure, tell.

Of course, Terry and Arlene are living in Sam’s house and it is, as he puts it, his pension that has burned down – so his calm and comfortable lifestyle is going to have to change.

The ‘previously on’ flashback reminds us that ‘a skinwalker’ is a shapechanger who kills a member of his own family and thusly develops the power to assume the likeness of humans. And what has shapechanger Tommy, Sam’s brother, just done? And what will he, inevitably, force Sam to do?

To lead us down that, likely tragic path, Tommy has to learn to use his new skill – which gives Sam Trammell the chance to have some fun being Tommy being him. If you see what I mean.

It is especially interesting when Luna turns up (Well, with a name like that, she could hardly miss a full moon now, could she). However, she doesn’t seem real perceptive – she spends several hours enjoying some ‘quality time’ with him and doesn’t notice his voice has changed. When he turns into a dog, he barks like a dog, but when he turns into Sam, he doesn’t bark like Sam, oddly.

Meanwhile, Jason’s story has a similar mix of humour and drama.  When Sookie goes to seek him out (for the first time this series) he has chained himself up so not to turn into a panther. Bless. Pathos, there is, also, as he confesses he partly wants to transform – so that he can be ‘special’ like everyone else he meets on a daily basis. Bless again!

Sook tells him that there’s no such thing as normal and that maybe his superpower is that he’s extra-good at sex. Then she falls for the old “Get me another drink” routine (just one step above the “Oh, look over there”). And he legs it into the forest.

But, thanks to her blood in his veins, Jess is connected to him, knows he is suffering and turns up to be with him. She, thankfully, doesn’t fall for the “Ooh, look” ploy. She won’t let him go through his transformation alone – so stays with him … out in the woods … at night … alone … Well – he is Hoyt’s best friend – so, soap-opera being what it is – he has to destroy one relationship by embarking on another. Or does he? Unlike Sookie, they can both see where this chemical bond might lead them and decide to be sensible. For the time being.

Conveniently, whilst wandering through the woods looking for Jason, Sook bumps into an unusually fully-clothed Alcide who confirm that were-ism is hereditary, “not a virus” (interesting phrase) and therefore Jason isn’t going to turn into anything supernatural.

Down Mexico way, Jesus, who is still trying to figure out how to defend himself against (the Old) Eric, finds himself a sacrifice but, of course, spells are always tricks and, it turns out, that LaFayette actually makes the sacrifice – swallowing the spirit of Tio Luca – a ghost who looks suspiciously like Twin Peaks’ Bob.

Remember Tara? Remember how it seemed she was going to be a more serious, positive character this year? Nah. She’s just there to provide some girl on girl action.

Down in King Bill’s dungeon, Marnie continues to be a pathetic, needy spirit whore – begging The Spanish Witch to use her.  She envisions the 16th century Spanish vamps raping the witch, then burning her because she wouldn’t scream. Well, that’s your motive, right there.  Like LaFayette, she bites off more than she can chew when she swallows the spirit of Antonia, for such is the witch’s name, and suddenly she is younger and straighter and stronger and able to wield incredible power over King Bill’s guard who – as coincidence stretched to breaking point would have it – was one of the vamps who raped Antonia in Spain. Oh dear, this won’t end well.

But what of King Bill and his request to kill Eric? Well, much to his consternation, Eric is so transformed he is ashamed of the vampire he was – he simple accepts Bill’s sentence. Which rather takes away the fun for Bill.

Eric then confides that he simply wants what’s best for Sookie because he loves her. Ouch. Well, enough of the masochistic Bill of old remains for him to not want to be the one to get in the way of this – so off Eric skips to make the horizontal mambo with Sookie, in the woods, under that full moon – and not a moment too soon for the show’s innumerable fan-girls, I imagine.

This leaves Bill in his palace, alone, bereft but feeling magnanimous. We’ll see how long that lasts – about as long as that Full Moon, I imagine!

TRUE BLOOD 4.6 – “I Wish I Was The Moon”

Writer: Raelle Tucker

Director: Jeremy Podeswa

Main cast: Anna Paquin, Stephen Moyer, Ryan Kwanten, Alexander Skarsgård, Sam Trammell, Rutina Wesley, Nelsan Ellis, Deborah Ann Woll, Marshall Allman, Kevin Alejandro

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